Egypt /
Meaning of the name
The name "Egypt" is believed to have come from the original name of Egypt's ancient capital Memphis, "Hout ka-Ptah," meaning "Castle of the ka of Ptah." This name was often used even for the country as a whole.The name came to be shortened and slightly transformed. Considering the original consonants h-t-k-p-t (pronounced), the three latter survived into respectively "k-p-t", "q-p-t" or "g-p-t." This was rendered into the Greek, 'Aegyptus', and later English: Egypt.The name of Egypt during ancient times, especially the Old Kingdom, was, however Kemet, meaning "Black land." This referred to the fertile soil of the Nile valley. Sometimes an opposite denotation was applied; Deshret, meaning "Red land." This referred to the desert, which also back then was the dominant landscape of the Egyptian territory.Today, the national name for Egypt is Misr, which comes from Arabic, and means simply "land" or "fortress", referring to the earliest Arabic settlements on Egyptian soil, located south of what would become Cairo.